Early in the second half on Tuesday night, North Dakota State head coach David Richmond was feeling very good about being tied 29-29 at Arkansas.
But a few minutes later head coach Mike Anderson’s Razorbacks went on a 16-0 run - one that Richmond was afraid was going to come - in what turned into Arkansas’ 71-55 win before 8,621 fans at Bud Walton Arena.
“I obviously want to congratulate Coach Anderson and his staff,” Richmond said. “I think they've got a real chance to do something this year. There's a toughness about them. They've got tremendous chemistry.
“You shoot free throws like that (14-of-16 Tuesday night after 29-of-31 in a win over Texas), that tells you they're locked in a mentally tough group. You could see it.
“They share the ball. They're just a team of runs. I thought we competed for a good stretch and tied it up fairly early in the second half. Then they just gapped it like they can in that four- or five-minute stretch and it was too much for us to overcome.”
Arkansas junior guard Daryl Macon had a team-high 15 points to lead the Razorbacks (10-1) to their seventh straight win while big man Moses Kingsley added 11 points and 8 rebounds and guards Dusty Hannahs and Anton Beard also scored 11.
Macon also had six rebounds and five assists with his only flaw being four turnovers while Kingsley added 8 rebounds against a North Dakota State team that won a game in the NCAA Tournament in 2015.
The Razorbacks held the Bison to 33.3 percent from the field, 25.9 percent from 3-point range and the visitors hit just 12-of-21 free throws.
Anderson made it clear to his team that a first half lead of 27-21 was unacceptable.
“He just said that we needed to play with more heart,” Macon said. “He was like ‘this is not our team.’ Like I said the first time, he was stressing to us that fast break points are our biggest deal and we should be leading the country in that and we needed to pick it up in the second half.”
But it was the defense during the game-deciding 16-0 run in the second half that the Arkansas players wanted to talk about most on a night when the Razorbacks shot just 39.3 percent from the floor.
“I think that was the biggest run of the game and it started with our defense,” Macon said. “We had to get stops and one thing that was stressed at halftime was we had to get transition buckets because one thing we try to do is lead the country in fast break points. That is just what we tried to do in the second half.”
North Dakota State was 0-of-7 shooting during the spurt by Arkansas.
“We knew it was coming,” Kingsley said. “We just had to get some stops and that’s what we did. That’s when we begin to pull away a little bit.”
The run was actually started by a steal from Hannahs, who also had a big steal late against Texas, and he joined Macon in knocking down a trio of 3-pointers during the spurt,
“I think Dusty is kind of trying to play both ends of the floor now,” Macon said. “He gets it that he will be an awesome player if he can play both ends of the floor. Right now he is a good player and he is picking it up (defensively) game-by-game and even does it in practice.
“And it sure is going to carry over to the game if he does it in practice.”
Richmond was surprised that leading scorer Khy Kabellis was 0-of-9 from the night, 0-of-6 from three point range, scored just two points and missed a couple of shots in the spree.
“I think it's a combination of everything a little bit,” Richmond said. “ A guy like Khy (Kabellis), he shoots it at a high level and he's 0 for 9 and he had a couple of those looks which he usually makes for us.
“It compounds itself. With you not scoring, a team like Arkansas really makes you play. Long shots, long rebounds, they're pushing it. They're getting easy buckets on the other end as well.”